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AT&T is facing a class-action complaint over its practice of charging a $1.99-per-month "Administrative Fee" that isn't disclosed in its advertised rates.

As the complaint notes, "AT&T prominently advertises particular flat monthly rates for its post-paid wireless service plans." But after customers sign up, the telco "covertly increases the actual price" by tacking on the "bogus so-called 'Administrative Fee,'" according to the lawsuit filed Thursday in US District Court for the Northern District of California.

AT&T "hides" the fee in an easy-to-miss spot in customer bills, the complaint says, and it "misleadingly suggests that the Administrative Fee is akin to a tax or another standard government pass-through fee, when in fact it is simply a way for AT&T to advertise and promise lower rates than it actually charges."

AT&T also provides an explanation "deep within" its website, but this is not an adequate disclosure, and the website description "serves to further AT&T’s deception and scheme by suggesting that the Administrative Fee is tied to certain costs associated with AT&T providing wireless telephone services (interconnect charges and cell site rental charges)," the complaint said.

If AT&T's description of the fee is accurate, "it would merely reinforce that this undisclosed fee should be included in the advertised monthly price for the service because those are basic costs of providing wireless service itself, and thus a reasonable consumer would expect those costs to be included in the advertised price for the service," the complaint said.

AT&T's website acknowledges that the fee is not a tax or required by the government. But the complaint says that AT&T customer bills list the fee in the "Surcharges & Fees" section, which is otherwise used to list "government costs AT&T must pay (e.g. taxes)." This suggests to customers "that the Administrative Fee is akin to a tax or is another government-related pass-through charge, which it is not."

AT&T raised fee despite its costs going down

AT&T introduced the fee in 2013 at the rate of $0.61 per month and has raised it three times. But if the fee was determined by AT&T's actual costs, it should have decreased, the complaint says:

Moreover, on information and belief, the fee is not, in fact, tied to the costs that AT&T’s buried description suggests. This is corroborated by the fact that AT&T has repeatedly increased the amount of the monthly Administrative Fee since the fee was first imposed, while during that same time period the stated costs that the Administrative Fee is purportedly paying for (i.e., interconnect charges and cell site rental charges) have actually decreased according to AT&T’s financial statements.

In all events, AT&T should clearly disclose the Administrative Fee and should clearly and accurately state the true monthly prices for its post-paid wireless service plans in its price representations and advertising. AT&T has failed to do so, and continues to fail to do so.

AT&T's website says the Administrative Fee "is subject to change from time to time as AT&T's costs change."

By increasing the hidden fee, AT&T is able to raise its actual prices without publicly announcing the new, higher rates, the complaint says. AT&T has improperly collected "hundreds of millions of dollars" from California customers by charging this fee over the past six years, the complaint alleges.

Seeking class-action status

The lawsuit was filed by AT&T customers Ian Vianu and Irina Bukchin, and it seeks class-action status for all current and former AT&T customers in California who were charged the Administrative Fee. The lawsuit also asks for a permanent injunction to force AT&T to stop charging the fee, as well as an order forcing AT&T to pay damages, restitution, and legal costs to the class.

People who have been charged the fee can contact Hattis Law, the firm representing the plaintiffs, using this online form.

When contacted by Ars, AT&T said only that "The lawsuit is wrong. This is a standard fee, and we disclose it to our customers."

Hattis Law also spearheaded a pending lawsuit against Comcast over its practice of charging "Broadcast TV and Regional Sports Network" fees that aren't included in its advertised cable TV rates. AT&T charges similar fees on its TV service.

That's American capitalism for you; bombard people with ads about "Only "$RATE" per month*!!" and then, in text so small you need an electron microscope to read it, it discloses the administrative fees, stadium tax, fee processing fees, the fact that it's only for the first year or two, and then starts going up like clockwork, etc.

And some people honestly wonder why there is an ever-growing animosity and distrust of the way things are.

I feel similar pain to these AT&T customers. My ISP, Suddenlink started adding a $2.50/month "Network Enhancement Fee" to their bills this in February this year.

Quote:

We continue to invest in our network and new technologies, like offering 1 Gig internet service and Altice One,our all-in-one entertainment experience. We are making adjustments to certain rates effective with your February bill, including the introduction of a Network Enhancement Fee of $2.50 per month, that will enable us to continue to invest in our network and infrastructure to deliver the best technology and services possible.

So I guess I am paying them so they will upgrade my networks. Maybe they'll give me a discount when the higher speeds arrive? /sOr maybe I could charge them a fee so I could upgrade my router and modem?

What I don't get is why taxes are exempt from the rate disclosure? The tax, if I understand correctly, is a flat fee, so it's well established the exact amount it will cost?

Is it like "that's not us charging you, that's the government charging you"? And if so is it really? Like that's not the government saying "AT&T you have to pay us xx per phone line" and AT&T is saying "ok customers have to pay us xx more"?

Traditionally, sales-related taxes in America vary by jurisdiction. So when a national manufacturer advertised a product, they would quote a price excluding taxes. For example, in some places, a “sales tax” will include levies by the state, the county, and the city. The average sales tax in Tennessee is just under %9.5 and in Alaska it’s a bit under %1.5. Alaska is a special case because of low population and high oil tax revenue, the next lowest state is Hawaii at about %4.4, average.

In other words, it’s pretty much impossible for a national advertisement to correctly list actual total including all taxes.

However, at actual signup time, or via a website that can handle user location customization, it absolutely ought to be a required disclosure.

It used to be that major “by mail” retailers would discretely rake in extra cash on “shipping fees”, but the rise of Amazon has made it difficult to keep customers if you do that. Fly-by-night scammers, who don’t really care about repeat business, still do that a lot though.

Being displeased with the current version of "Capitalism" operating in America does not make one a Socialist.

Although, thinking about that led me down an interesting train of thought.

You seem to assume that "Capitalist" and "Socialist" are two extremes at opposite ends of a spectrum. Or at least, are appropriate labels for the areas near the ends of the spectrum.

I don't think that's the case, but what if it were?

What is "Socialism"? Socialism believes that things should be distributed among the people, and owned by the people. All people. In its most extreme form, all things would be divided equally among all people, and owned equally among all people. (Almost no one believes this is actually practical).

So what is the opposite of that?

All things would consolidated under one person. Owned and controlled by one person.

That is the most extreme form of whatever is the opposite of Socialism.

That sounds more like Despotism than Capitalism.

The somewhat less extreme, more "realistic" version would be that most things are owned and controlled by the few.

That sounds a *lot* like what we have now.

If what we have now is Capitalism, then Capitalism ~= slightly expanded Despotism.

Or maybe you would argue that Capitalism is the middle of the scale? If so, why would you assume that those who oppose it are Socialists, and not Despots or Autocrats?

Your definition of socialism is really the definition of communism, in its idealized imaginary never-achieved form. If you want to imagine a spectrum, socialism is somewhere between capitalism and communism. Personal property is still a thing, but "the means of production" is collectively owned. So, basically, businesses are either managed by the government or they are managed by the workers.

I'd like to think there is room for "well-regulated capitalism" somewhere on that spectrum between capitalism and socialism. It's not what we have but it's a useful thing to aim for.

Socialism is the ideal, Communism is one system by which Socialism might be achieved. It has, so far, never worked. Nor is it likely to work, but that's what it is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SocialismSocialism is a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production and workers' self-management,[10] as well as the political theories and movements associated with them.[11] Social ownership can be public, collective or cooperative ownership, or citizen ownership of equity.[12] There are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them,[13] with social ownership being the common element shared by its various forms.[5][14][15]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CommunismIn political and social sciences, communism (from Latin communis, "common, universal")[1][2] is the philosophical, social, political, and economic ideology and movement whose ultimate goal is the establishment of the communist society, which is a socioeconomic order structured upon the common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, money,[3][4] and the state.[5][6]

Historically there was some overlap in the use of the terms but in current usage socialism does not eliminate private property while idealized communism does.

If they say it's $70/mo, then you pay $70/mo, including all the taxes, fees, etc.

No hidden BS.

ATT/Comcast/et al can go jump in a lake. It is possible to run a profitable company without deceiving your customers.

Except if anything goes wrong, heaven help you. I got a prepaid T-Mobile activation SIM kit on March 6th to evaluate how their service was.

It kept giving me errors activating and errors creating an account, I called support and was told to wait a bit, then that I needed to go to a store to activate it, then that I needed another new sim-kit, then that I needed to use a different email address, then that I needed to put more credit on it, and a few other things.

Finally June 15th they figured out how to fix the system -- by which time I really honestly didn't care if it worked or not anymore after seeing how incompetant the upper tier support was.

And bonus, since I couldn't get thru the activation I couldn't use online chat...and phone support would just keep opening a ticket (which got closed without fix) and telling me wait a week. I finally had to go thru Twitter yelling for months to get anywhere.

(EDIT: Oh, and after all that? I find out that there's not usable service where I live on T-Mobile.even though they mark it as "verified" service a street over on the river-front homes)

I don't like how much Verizon charges...but man when I have a problem its almost always fixed within a couple hours including elevating to upper tier engineers if needed!

That's American capitalism for you; bombard people with ads about "Only "$RATE" per month*!!" and then, in text so small you need an electron microscope to read it, it discloses the administrative fees, stadium tax, fee processing fees, the fact that it's only for the first year or two, and then starts going up like clockwork, etc.

And some people honestly wonder why there is an ever-growing animosity and distrust of the way things are.

My apartment has all-in rent (which makes it a rare treasure), and, last year, my landlord upgraded from standard FIOS to Gigabit, largely based on Verizon's ad campaign advertising "$100/month for two years, including TV, internet and phone service". Since he had been paying around $150 for essentially the same package except with 100/100 speeds, it seemed like a no-brainer to him.

Of course, then the first bill arrives, and it's $180.

Now, I understand that fees are always more complex behind the scenes, and that it would be unrealistic for everyone to actually get an identical $100-just fee, especially since price quotes in the US can't include taxes. So, if it ended up being, say, $110.57, it even if they got a little greedy and rounded it up to $115, I might be annoyed, but in a "*sigh* - Land of the Free, huh?" sort of way. It's sad, but it's so common, we generally anticipate that level of advertising discrepancy and mentally include it in our price estimate.

But this isn't 10%/15%, it's f-ing 80%. It's almost $2,000 extra, just over the promotional period. That isn't a discrepancy due to local taxes/fees, that's just plain fraud.

*sigh*

I know, deep down inside, that all this "let's rob 90% of the population blind so we can buy more platinum backscratchers" BS that's been getting increasingly brazen over the past decades, and which this is simply another symptom of, will eventually end up biting them in the rear big time, likely French Revolution-style. It's the nature of greed to always aim for more, after all, and it will definitely reach the point where collective discontent reaches critical mass, and they will just happily keep going despite the risks, right up until the people gathering up their pitchforks and torches, and heads on pikes start becoming a common sight (mental note: invest in pitchforks). But with modern media/entertainment options keeping the populace placated in a semi-catatonic state, I fear that by the time it actually gets bad enough to wake them from their stupor, we'll end up skipping Angry Mob phases I - IX, and go straight to the nightmarish anarchic mass rioting, bodies-littering-the-streets phase that will take decades to recover from. The delicate balance these people have set up, of keeping the population just barely distracted enough to not pay attention to how badly they are being screwed over, along with their efforts to keep the biggest red flags under wraps, hidden away, has resulted in a pressure-cooker situation where we've already gone far beyond the boiling point, so when it finally blows, it will just be incredibly ugly for everyone.

For now, they've managed to successfully misdirect and vent some of that pent up rage into politics, hoping the people will be too busy fighting each other to look behind the curtain, but, even as gullible and foolish as many of the people are, it's at best a temporary stop-gap. I'm equal parts excited and absolutely terrified to see it all go to hell, but hopefully it's sooner rather than later, as the longer it cooks, the worse it will be when it finally hits.

If they say it's $70/mo, then you pay $70/mo, including all the taxes, fees, etc.

No hidden BS.

ATT/Comcast/et al can go jump in a lake. It is possible to run a profitable company without deceiving your customers.

Except if anything goes wrong, heaven help you. I got a prepaid T-Mobile activation SIM kit on March 6th to evaluate how their service was.

It kept giving me errors activating and errors creating an account, I called support and was told to wait a bit, then that I needed to go to a store to activate it, then that I needed another new sim-kit, then that I needed to use a different email address, then that I needed to put more credit on it, and a few other things.

Finally June 15th they figured out how to fix the system -- by which time I really honestly didn't care if it worked or not anymore after seeing how incompetant the upper tier support was.

And bonus, since I couldn't get thru the activation I couldn't use online chat...and phone support would just keep opening a ticket (which got closed without fix) and telling me wait a week. I finally had to go thru Twitter yelling for months to get anywhere.

I don't like how much Verizon charges...but man when I have a problem its almost always fixed within a couple hours including elevating to upper tier engineers if needed!

First off... prepaid and postpaid are separate groups of customer support employees.

Second, when you went to a store, was it an actual T-mo location, or someplace else that sells T-mo along with other products?

Third, your experience is *not* the normal experience of T-mo postpaid customers. I haven't had many issues during my three years, but every time I've had to engage Customer Support, they have always been helpful, and always resolved my issue promptly and politely.

T-Mobile has been ranked #1 in Customer Service by JD Power for many (maybe all?) of the last 10 years.

If you don't like T-mo, or your single bad experience has turned you against them, that's fine, but you might want to find something other than Customer Service to trash them on. That's like complaining that Usain Bolt isn't fast enough.

If they say it's $70/mo, then you pay $70/mo, including all the taxes, fees, etc.

No hidden BS.

ATT/Comcast/et al can go jump in a lake. It is possible to run a profitable company without deceiving your customers.

Except if anything goes wrong, heaven help you. I got a prepaid T-Mobile activation SIM kit on March 6th to evaluate how their service was.

It kept giving me errors activating and errors creating an account, I called support and was told to wait a bit, then that I needed to go to a store to activate it, then that I needed another new sim-kit, then that I needed to use a different email address, then that I needed to put more credit on it, and a few other things.

Finally June 15th they figured out how to fix the system -- by which time I really honestly didn't care if it worked or not anymore after seeing how incompetant the upper tier support was.

And bonus, since I couldn't get thru the activation I couldn't use online chat...and phone support would just keep opening a ticket (which got closed without fix) and telling me wait a week. I finally had to go thru Twitter yelling for months to get anywhere.

I don't like how much Verizon charges...but man when I have a problem its almost always fixed within a couple hours including elevating to upper tier engineers if needed!

First off... prepaid and postpaid are separate groups of customer support employees.

Second, when you went to a store, was it an actual T-mo location, or someplace else that sells T-mo along with other products?

Third, your experience is *not* the normal experience of T-mo postpaid customers. I haven't had many issues during my three years, but every time I've had to engage Customer Support, they have always been helpful, and always resolved my issue promptly and politely.

T-Mobile has been ranked #1 in Customer Service by JD Power for many (maybe all?) of the last 10 years.

If you don't like T-mo, or your single bad experience has turned you against them, that's fine, but you might want to find something other than Customer Service to trash them on. That's like complaining that Usain Bolt isn't fast enough.

I've had t-Mobile as my phone provider for over a decade. Before that I used AT&T, and agree that t-Mobile is a much better company to deal with, and I highly recommend them. That said, the last time I got a new phone it needed a new SIM card because the format changed, and it was a 3 hour in the t-Mobile store pain in the ass.

As for the JD Power awards, their rating scale is relative to the competitors. Being the top scoring cell-phone service provider is pretty much like being the top-rated sexually transmitted disease.

Case in point. I am flying into Portland Oregon. Got a discounted rate for a rental car for 10 days, about $500.00. (Portland is expensive). When searching for the rate I was quoted online a rate of $285.00 for the 10 days. During the booking process the additional fees and taxes amounted to over $250.00. Unfortunately the other car rental companies pull the same stunt.

The rate you see is not the rate you pay.

I always use economycarrentals.com. Get a quote in minutes that is always way less than the majors, albeit you may end up renting from Thrifty rather than Hertz. The price they quote includes insurance etc, and is exactly what you pay.

That's American capitalism for you; bombard people with ads about "Only "$RATE" per month*!!" and then, in text so small you need an electron microscope to read it, it discloses the administrative fees, stadium tax, fee processing fees, the fact that it's only for the first year or two, and then starts going up like clockwork, etc.

And some people honestly wonder why there is an ever-growing animosity and distrust of the way things are.

It is *American* capitalism, too. You can't get away with this bullshit in any sane country. Try it in the EU and you'll get slapped with a giant fine very quickly.

This is par for the course in Japan, where mobile companies charge about 300 Yen for "connection fees" (which they state idea for connection to the internet and for the user of their own internal email service that hardly anyone uses). This is on top of the monthly internet fees people pay for various bandwidth limits.

Third, your experience is *not* the normal experience of T-mo postpaid customers. I haven't had many issues during my three years, but every time I've had to engage Customer Support, they have always been helpful, and always resolved my issue promptly and politely.

This is pretty much the reason I'm still with T-Mobile, even after all the maddening things they've done (just look at some past Ars articles on them), even though my phone barely gets reception at home, and even though the plan I'm on isn't even offered anymore so I can't make any changes to it (not like I want to anyway).

I've dealt with the others on a fairly regular basis as I tried to find the best deal for my mom with her limited income, and most of them are terrible.

That's American capitalism for you; bombard people with ads about "Only "$RATE" per month*!!" and then, in text so small you need an electron microscope to read it, it discloses the administrative fees, stadium tax, fee processing fees, the fact that it's only for the first year or two, and then starts going up like clockwork, etc.

And some people honestly wonder why there is an ever-growing animosity and distrust of the way things are.

My apartment has all-in rent (which makes it a rare treasure), and, last year, my landlord upgraded from standard FIOS to Gigabit, largely based on Verizon's ad campaign advertising "$100/month for two years, including TV, internet and phone service". Since he had been paying around $150 for essentially the same package except with 100/100 speeds, it seemed like a no-brainer to him.

Of course, then the first bill arrives, and it's $180.

Now, I understand that fees are always more complex behind the scenes, and that it would be unrealistic for everyone to actually get an identical $100-just fee, especially since price quotes in the US can't include taxes. So, if it ended up being, say, $110.57, it even if they got a little greedy and rounded it up to $115, I might be annoyed, but in a "*sigh* - Land of the Free, huh?" sort of way. It's sad, but it's so common, we generally anticipate that level of advertising discrepancy and mentally include it in our price estimate.

But this isn't 10%/15%, it's f-ing 80%. It's almost $2,000 extra, just over the promotional period. That isn't a discrepancy due to local taxes/fees, that's just plain fraud.

*sigh*

I know, deep down inside, that all this "let's rob 90% of the population blind so we can buy more platinum backscratchers" BS that's been getting increasingly brazen over the past decades, and which this is simply another symptom of, will eventually end up biting them in the rear big time, likely French Revolution-style. It's the nature of greed to always aim for more, after all, and it will definitely reach the point where collective discontent reaches critical mass, and they will just happily keep going despite the risks, right up until the people gathering up their pitchforks and torches, and heads on pikes start becoming a common sight (mental note: invest in pitchforks). But with modern media/entertainment options keeping the populace placated in a semi-catatonic state, I fear that by the time it actually gets bad enough to wake them from their stupor, we'll end up skipping Angry Mob phases I - IX, and go straight to the nightmarish anarchic mass rioting, bodies-littering-the-streets phase that will take decades to recover from. The delicate balance these people have set up, of keeping the population just barely distracted enough to not pay attention to how badly they are being screwed over, along with their efforts to keep the biggest red flags under wraps, hidden away, has resulted in a pressure-cooker situation where we've already gone far beyond the boiling point, so when it finally blows, it will just be incredibly ugly for everyone.

For now, they've managed to successfully misdirect and vent some of that pent up rage into politics, hoping the people will be too busy fighting each other to look behind the curtain, but, even as gullible and foolish as many of the people are, it's at best a temporary stop-gap. I'm equal parts excited and absolutely terrified to see it all go to hell, but hopefully it's sooner rather than later, as the longer it cooks, the worse it will be when it finally hits.

"And so I have a message for my fellow filthy rich, for all of us who live in our gated bubble worlds: Wake up, people. It won’t last.

If we don’t do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didn’t eventually come out. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples. None. It’s not if, it’s when."

What I don't get is why taxes are exempt from the rate disclosure? The tax, if I understand correctly, is a flat fee, so it's well established the exact amount it will cost?

Is it like "that's not us charging you, that's the government charging you"? And if so is it really? Like that's not the government saying "AT&T you have to pay us xx per phone line" and AT&T is saying "ok customers have to pay us xx more"?

In Europe, taxes are always included in the final price. As is VAT etc. That is the true price, and there is no point in specifying what the tax portion is (except VAT if you are a business and will use this in your own VAT handling, of course).

What I don't get is why taxes are exempt from the rate disclosure? The tax, if I understand correctly, is a flat fee, so it's well established the exact amount it will cost?

Is it like "that's not us charging you, that's the government charging you"? And if so is it really? Like that's not the government saying "AT&T you have to pay us xx per phone line" and AT&T is saying "ok customers have to pay us xx more"?

In Europe, taxes are always included in the final price. As is VAT etc. That is the true price, and there is no point in specifying what the tax portion is (except VAT if you are a business and will use this in your own VAT handling, of course).

In the United States, there are about 10,000 different taxing districts, each of which can set its own tax rate.

That's American capitalism for you; bombard people with ads about "Only "$RATE" per month*!!" and then, in text so small you need an electron microscope to read it, it discloses the administrative fees, stadium tax, fee processing fees, the fact that it's only for the first year or two, and then starts going up like clockwork, etc.

And some people honestly wonder why there is an ever-growing animosity and distrust of the way things are.

It is *American* capitalism, too. You can't get away with this bullshit in any sane country. Try it in the EU and you'll get slapped with a giant fine very quickly.

You SOCIALIST! need to shut up! Greed is the ultimate American value; if you don't like it, then move to Sweden!

What I don't get is why taxes are exempt from the rate disclosure? The tax, if I understand correctly, is a flat fee, so it's well established the exact amount it will cost?

Is it like "that's not us charging you, that's the government charging you"? And if so is it really? Like that's not the government saying "AT&T you have to pay us xx per phone line" and AT&T is saying "ok customers have to pay us xx more"?

In Europe, taxes are always included in the final price. As is VAT etc. That is the true price, and there is no point in specifying what the tax portion is (except VAT if you are a business and will use this in your own VAT handling, of course).

In the United States, there are about 10,000 different taxing districts, each of which can set its own tax rate.

What I don't get is why taxes are exempt from the rate disclosure? The tax, if I understand correctly, is a flat fee, so it's well established the exact amount it will cost?

Is it like "that's not us charging you, that's the government charging you"? And if so is it really? Like that's not the government saying "AT&T you have to pay us xx per phone line" and AT&T is saying "ok customers have to pay us xx more"?

In Europe, taxes are always included in the final price. As is VAT etc. That is the true price, and there is no point in specifying what the tax portion is (except VAT if you are a business and will use this in your own VAT handling, of course).

In the United States, there are about 10,000 different taxing districts, each of which can set its own tax rate.

It’s tough to run a television ad via a nationwide buy when you have 10,000 potentially different prices.

But sure, once ATT is talking to an individual with a fixed address, they should be quoting an all-inclusive cost to the consumer.

But it’s an American tradition that’s at least 80 years old; I’d love for it to change, but companies and retailers, the people who list prices, see the status quo as being in their interest, so it would take government regulation to make happen. Which I’m fine with, too, but that won’t fly in most states right now. Not sure it could be imposed at the Federal level, ‘cause freeze peach.

That's American capitalism for you; bombard people with ads about "Only "$RATE" per month*!!" and then, in text so small you need an electron microscope to read it, it discloses the administrative fees, stadium tax, fee processing fees, the fact that it's only for the first year or two, and then starts going up like clockwork, etc.

And some people honestly wonder why there is an ever-growing animosity and distrust of the way things are.

I bought an electron microscope to read text exactly like that. Bought US instead of Chinese, and now I'm involved in a lawsuit over a (unbeknownst to me) "monthly possession fee" that has been continually charged to my credit card ever since the microscope arrived in the mail...

That's American capitalism for you; bombard people with ads about "Only "$RATE" per month*!!" and then, in text so small you need an electron microscope to read it, it discloses the administrative fees, stadium tax, fee processing fees, the fact that it's only for the first year or two, and then starts going up like clockwork, etc.

And some people honestly wonder why there is an ever-growing animosity and distrust of the way things are.

I bought an electron microscope to read text exactly like that. Bought US instead of Chinese, and now I'm involved in a lawsuit over a (unbeknownst to me) "monthly possession fee" that has been continually charged to my credit card ever since the microscope arrived in the mail...

... the irony is that microscope failed just minutes after the warranty ran out.

A bill I'd love to see introduced into the House would be one that requires more truth in advertising.

The bait and switch bullshit that companies do needs to stop. If they advertise a rate, and that rate isn't what people pay, it's false advertising. It's actionable ONLY IF the rate paid is higher, not lower. This way companies can advertise a rate that's higher than what customers will actually pay, but can't advertise a rate that's lower than what customers actually pay.

Make the penalty a refund of the difference plus any associated costs to the customer, plus $10,000 per instance. Have the matter decided by binding arbitration, arranged by the GOVERNMENT, with the only evidence needed being a record of what the customer was told (or an ad) and the bill showing what they got and how much they paid. That would keep complaints from clogging up the legal system and keep costs to the customer low. The loser then reimburses the government for the cost of arbitration, in addition to refunds and penalties.

Once that's in place, expand it to the kind of out of context nonsense a lot of businesses do to get more customers beyond charging higher than the advertised price. (Like those weight loss devices and other bullshit snake oil things that do not work.) It either works for your customer, or you go to arbitration if you refuse a full refund (including any shipping charges incurred).

I'm so fucking tired of the business ripoff. But I expect this won't happen, at least not for another couple of years.

I agree & have had similar hopes and dreams. Hotels enrage me the most with "resort fees". I'd also go a step further and say sales tax, occupancy tax, etc. should all be included in any advertised price. Yes, there are uncommon circumstances where some don't pay a certain fee or tax, but why not advertise the out-of-pocket cost to the 95% and let the 5% be pleasantly surprised?

At the end of the day, when most customers end up paying a fee or tax, it should be rolled into the advertised price of any product or service. Anything short of that is deceptive.

I’m ok with taxes and other government fees being broken out. It’s an important signal that this portion of the transaction is completely out of the control of the merchant. It’s also an important reminder that we all agreed to this and could change it if we so saw fit. Especially things like hotel taxes that are often rolled into things like the stadium finance scam are better off in the daylight than being hidden as part of a total cost.

At the very least they should be required to tell you the total after tax before taking a booking, scheduling an installation, or the like, and before the customer is committed to the deal, or at any time you request that information if you ask earlier.